When I was in my early 20s and just out of college, I grocery-shopped at the dollar store near my house. I was working more than 80 hours a week, making $9 an hour. Because of transportation costs and my student loans, I was perpetually multiple months behind on everything but rent, which I split with two very understanding roommates. I didn’t qualify for food or housing assistance because I made too much money, and didn’t have family to lean on.

I also didn’t think of myself as the kind of person who should get assistance. I was able to work, educated, and capable. I was humiliated enough by my situation without applying for public funds; I’d grown up hearing Bill Clinton praised for reducing welfare rolls and internalized that along with the individualism praised in our culture. I’d bought into the bootstrap myth and thought if I just kept working I’d eventually be self-sufficient, so I just kept pushing myself. I had no idea that more than 42 million Americans experience food insecurity, unsure whether they’ll be able to replace the food in their fridge when it’s gone. It wasn’t until I found myself taken advantage of by someone who’d offered me help in the form of a place to stay, in the summer of 2014, that I finally broke down and applied for CalFresh. (CalFresh is is the name for California's entitlement program that's supervised by the state and also known as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), the federal organization that provides food assistance to low-income Americans, seniors, the disabled, and others who are at or below 130 percent of the poverty line.) San Diego county expedited my application (in part because I have the privilege of having all my documents and the technology to scan and upload paperwork), and less than a week later I had my electronic benefits (EBT) card. Despite my undeniable need, I still felt guilty at times — reinforced by people’s reactions when they found out I was using SNAP.

I’d started talking about poverty from a personal perspective on Twitter and on radio guest spots despite my discomfort in breaking down the stigma of what welfare recipients look and sound like. I was inundated by email and online comments from people who said things like “Look at this b*tch, she doesn’t look hungry.” I was visibly losing weight from pulling all-nighters and not eating well, which made those comments additionally hard to swallow. Meeting friends for a coffee became uncomfortable because many felt they had to pay, so I isolated myself further. It would take more than six months to recover, a process made possible by a stranger turned family who bailed me out of my living situation two years ago.

I’m currently utilizing SNAP for the second time in three years, and I feel less shame and guilt this time around. But despite the relative security of living in a safe state and at last being surrounded by chosen family who make sure I have a place to live even when I can’t afford to pay them, the recent election has spiked my daily anxiety around material insecurity. And I’m not alone.

The collective anxiety of those who have long lived on the edge is up as we watch the president and his allies threaten to shift federal funding away from programs that provide vital support, like heating and home assistance, to those at or near the poverty line, affecting our need for food assistance as well. Legislators don’t need to cut SNAP directly (which would require easy-to-attack legislation) to shake the already weak foundation of the food-insecure.

And the cuts would start immediately, according to the nonpartisan Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP). After all, $15 billion of the “nondefense discretionary” programs — AKA the domestic programs that help those in need — from the current budget plus $54 billion from next year’s would be shifted into defense for missiles and border security costs.

Feeding America CEO Diana Aviv described President Trump’s budget blueprint in a statement as “[putting] the vulnerable and low-income populations in harm’s way by jeopardizing funding for programs that serve Americans who have fallen on hard times.”

Because taking food out of people’s mouths — especially children, veterans, and the elderly — is particularly hard to spin, I spoke with Stacy Dean, vice president for food assistance policy at CBPP, about why and how they’re going about it. She told me that critics of SNAP are “attempting to expand their reach” by painting recipients as “work-avoidant” and the program as “rife with waste, fraud and abuse” despite the well-documented boost to local economies provided through its funding.

“They’re selling a narrative which suggests that SNAP is a program in crisis ... and that states must step in and take action to avoid all of these problems,” says Dean. “Frankly, nothing could be further from the truth. SNAP is a highly efficient and effective program.”

Often, efforts focus on administratively expensive line-item restrictions on sodas and candy bars — even though there’s no indication that people’s food choices can be effectively legislated. The only real effects any of this choice-limiting legislation have are to increase hunger and stigma.

Lucky for me and my 42 million counterparts, budget proposals are public and require congressional action to pass. Stacy reminds me that the current federal budget proposal is not the final version, so interested parties should watch for the version expected to come out this week.

“Setting aside the details which can be mind-numbing at times, budgets are values documents,” she says. “If the widespread proposal is to provide tax cuts to the very wealthy, but yet to pull back on effective programming to the very poor, that’s a values statement.”

Carrie Calvert, director of tax and commodity policy at the nation’s largest domestic hunger-relief organization, Feeding America, tells me that the proposals for cutting programs for low-income Americans are counterintuitive, and stressed that it's now more important "than ever to reach out to members of Congress."

I have my representatives on speed dial; I let them know regularly that I appreciate the funding that’s allowing me to get back on my feet and that I expect them to vocally support keeping antipoverty programs solvent. Congress.gov will help you find your legislators. Don’t do it for me; do it for yourself and your family. As fiscal policy analyst Howard Gleckman wrote in an op-ed for Forbes in 2015, “a[n] ... accurate estimate of the share of Americans who get government subsidies would be, roughly, 100 percent.” The safety net exists for all of us, and all of us should be diligent about proposals that may put a hole right where we’ll need it someday.